Spain Report denounces
the radicalisation of policies that violate fundamental rights
at Spain's southern border20.4.17
Follow us:
| | TweetPress
release published
by the Andalucian Association for Human Rights (Associación
Pro Derechos Humanos de Andalucía, APDHA) on 29 March
2017. Emphasis in original.APDHA denounces
the radicalisation of policies that violate fundamental rights
at the southern border

During 2016 deaths
increased 34% at European coasts and 125% at Spanish coasts

Andalucia, 29 March 2017
- The Andalucian Association for Human Rights has today presented
at a press conference its report 'Human Rights at the Southern
Border 2017', in which it denounces the radicalisation of Spanish
and EU policies that violate human rights and contravene international
law. The organisation highlights that "migratory policies
have become an implacable machine for generating suffering, provoking
deaths and systematically violating the human rights of migrants
and refugees."

An outcome of this, says
the organisation, is the "huge increase" during
2016 in the number of people who have died trying to reach
European coasts - 34% higher than in 2015 - and Spanish coasts,
125% more than just two years ago. "It is profoundly despicable
that the Spanish management of migratory flows is sold as a success
story when it includes hundreds of dead and disappeared,"
says the APDHA.

Another of the great "black
holes" in the ranking of violations in Spain, they argue,
is the existence of eight detention centres (Centros
de Internamiento de Extranjeros or CIEs), where people who
have not committed any crime are incarcerated. According to Interior
Ministry statistics, during the past year only 29% of people
interned in CIEs were expelled from the country. "It
is a useless mechanism that only serves as a tool of repression
and punishment," says the organisation.

The situation is "if
possible, even more scandalous in some CIEs, such as the
one in Algeciras," whose installations are "horrifying,"
according to the city's Fiscal Extranjeria [Foreign Attorney,
a state official responsible for prosecuting crimes such as trafficking
and smuggling; determining the age of unaccompanied minors; and
investigating detention centres]. In 2010, the Ombudsman's Office
called for the centre's closure due to its "absolutely
inadequate" installations in a "more-than-deficient
state of conservation and with lamentable hygiene."
Circumstances are no better in the CIE in Tarifa, denounced by
the APDHA, where there are cells with holes in the floor,
exposed to the view of everyone, that serve as toilets.

For ADPHA, "extreme
depths have been reached in the violation of human rights:
refugees are criminalised, migrants are represented as a threat
and state security forces are given carte blanche to violently
reprimand them with hot returns [pushbacks across the border],
the exercise of rights such as the right to asylum, the right
to non-refoulement, the prohibition on collective deportations
and the protection of minors and potential victims of trafficking."

In the report, that gathers
information from months of investigation in the field as well
as the work of numerous public and private organisations carried
out with migrants in Andalucia, Ceuta, Tangiers and Melilla,
the opinions of migrants waiting in the forests of Morocco near
the border are detailed. They live in fear of aggression
from the Moroccan police, who every so often beat them and burn
their few possessions. These migrants wonder, given that since
their countries were - and still are - plundered and colonised
by Europe and its businesses, why they are not allowed to
enter and seek a future despite the existence of a legitimate
debt.

Before this reality, the
Andalucian Association for Human Rights, as well as denouncing
the different ways in which governments promote and violate human
rights, calls for the respect of the rights of people at the
southern frontier, compliance with international law and
the establishment of safe routes so that those fleeing
- from war, hunger, or by their own decision - can find a future
with having to risk their life doing so.Unofficial
translation by Statewatch. The full report, Derechos Humanos
en la Frontera Sur 2017, can be downloaded from APDHA here (link to pdf, Spanish only).

&COPY; Statewatch ISSN 1756-851X.
Personal usage as private individuals/"fair dealing"
is allowed. We also welcome links to material on our site. Usage
by those working for organisations is allowed only if the organisation
holds an appropriate licence from the relevant reprographic rights
organisation (eg: Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK) with
such usage being subject to the terms and conditions of that
licence and to local copyright law.